Barden on Chess

The old guys came through at the end. For much of the $2m World Cup in Siberia it seemed that one of the 17-year-olds, Magnus Carlsen (Norway) or Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine), might upset the established order and qualify for the final stages of the world championship.

Their teen revolution was thwarted in the semi-finals by Gata Kamsky and Alexey Shirov. The Tatar-born American and the former Latvian now representing Spain will this morning (10 am start, play live on the internet) lock pawns with Kamsky 1.5-0.5 ahead in a four-game match. The winner will receive $120,000 and the right to meet the former champion Veselin Topalov in a series to decide who challenges Vishy Anand or Vlad Kramnik for the world crown.

All five title claimants are past 30, which in an era of complex computer-generated opening theory counts as near-veteran. The explanation? Experience, stability, matchcraft, a rational approach and a sense of destiny all come into it. But Carlsen's and Karjakin's time will come.